Perth Barista Jam Wrap-up

The espresso flowed Things got blurry

How good was it ? It was awesome. So many coffee people in one room, sharing tips and tricks and blends and beers. I was massively proud to be amongst so many people from such diverse backgrounds, all getting into the spirit of things.

We had coffees sent from all over the country, including some fantastic beans from Eureka. We had Black Sheep and Blue Horse, and beans from every coffee producing continent on earth (well I think we did anyway).

There were people from cafe’s all over the city, as well as a good turn out from local roasters. Five Senses and Fiori were well represented and had brought out a stack of great single origins to try. Standouts for me were the Mao’s Blue Horse Ethiopian Harrar from Fiori, and a Sumatran from Gayo Mountain by Five Senses.

There was an impromptu cupping which gave the a bit of background to story of the coffees and the processes they’ve gone through before ending up in our cups, and then the latte art smackdown took centre stage.

The competition was fierce… almost as fierce as the sledging from the gallery. There were some great pours, some not so great pours, and some mind boggling 3 dimensional pours… in the end, the man with the skills to pull it off was none other than Jackson of Tiger, Tiger. Who took home a fine swag of booty courtesy of the nice folks at Sunbeam.

The jam was also a swan song of sorts for Jen Murray, our current barista champ here in Perth, who will be heading over to Canada for a while shortly, leaving the Perth coffee scene much less cooler than when she arrived. Much love to Jen on her travels, and well done for putting together such a sweet sweet event all on the whimsical prompting of yours truly :)

Check out the photos and see what you missed out on if you were too cool to show up :)

7 thoughts on “Perth Barista Jam Wrap-up”

  1. I don’t know much about coffee and rarely even drink it, but you’ve got me craving a cup. There’s some beautiful work there (big fan of image 25)!

  2. I am SO dissapointed I couldn’t make it yesterday! Your fabulous piccies have made me totally jealous. I wonder if the rain will hold up soon enough for me to head up to Tiger Tiger to congratulate Jackson.

  3. Let me just say that I am a customer, not a barista … I did attend anyway though and I am extremely glad I did.

    I have to say that the environment was extremely friendly and at first I found myself sitting back not wanting to break anything. I have your typical Sunbeam not-quite-entry-level machine at home and it was a bit intimidating for me. However a friendly bloke came over and made me feel VERY welcome, showed me the ropes and off I went making coffee so badly it probably made many people there chuckle :)

    Anyway I enjoyed the entire time there, the cupping was interesting, the comp was a stack of fun and being able to make coffee using decent grinders and equipment many levels up from what I’m used to was an absolute blast.

    This is getting to be quite a lengthy piece, but I just wanted to thank all the baristas, roasters and industry people there for making me feel welcome and giving me yet another boost in my enjoyment of coffee!

  4. Thanks Tim, there was some great efforts over the day, and it was enough to make even the most conscientious tea drinker crave a shot or two :)

    Sunili, shame you couldn’t make it down. It was a great day… too much coffee, and enough beer to make the latte art smackdown very interesting :) We’ll hopefully organise another one soon and keep the good vibes going.

    Aaron, thanks for the feedback, I’m really glad you came along and enjoyed yourself. I think there were quite a few people in the same boat as you, with anxious/nervous looks on their faces when presented with an armory of grinders and machines… but good on for you getting into it.

  5. Following on from comments above, I had a wonderful day mixing with the cream of Perth’s specialty coffee community, the way they made me feel welcome and the diverse range of premium beans to choose from, many espresso shots were consumed over the afternoon.
    The cupping and latte art comp were great, my artwork improved on Monday after watching the techniques of competitors.
    Looking forward to more of these events in the future……………well done to the organisers!!

  6. Hey Matt,

    That Blurry photo is my efforts, I was moving way to fast for the camera ;)haha

    I really enjoyed myself and got to meet some great people and catch up with a few I don’t get to see much anymore.

    Hope there is another event soon!

    Mimmo

  7. Cheers Trevor, great to see you there and glad you enjoyed it.

    Mimmo, yeh mate, that was you. The speed was overwhelming :) Or it could have been my dodgy camera skills… Though i think i like that shot the best. Good to catch up with you for a bit, and hopefully there’ll be another one in the not too distant future.

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